Practiced dance steps all afternoon on Saturday; we had a good laugh if nothing else. Went to the ball Saturday night. Tried dancing, decided to go back to dance school next fall. Sat at a table upstairs overlooking the happenings, drank wine, ate a schnitzel, talked to friends, stood around in the bar drinking champagne, tried dancing again, verified we had forgotten pretty much everything, went back to the table, back to the bar, stood around until I felt sick and lightheaded from more champagne, all the cigarette smoke, went upstairs for fresh air, met more friends, had another wine, went home.
It was excellent.
Alpha looked beautiful in her black ball gown with this long lacing up the back, and high heeled black pumps, mmm. I spilled a glass of red wine all over her pretty early on, but it was okay, black dress and the wine wasn’t that great either. She took it well.
The ball is the high point of my year, socially at least. I would love to attend one with a zoologist or a sociologist, if he had a good sense of humor, to study the behavior of the guests. The pecking orders, the mating rituals, the display behavior, etc.
Some of us were talking about how the ball has come down in recent years. People running around without ties, or in pantssuits etc. But to be honest, the kids looked far better than the first time I went, in 1980. Their parents are obviously spending more on fixing them up. The boys all had nice suits, the girls were all expensively-coiffed and shoehorned into spendy gowns, especially the debs who opened the ball, all in white.
I could go on and on about the evening. My delight at seeing the used-car dealer and his wife, who look like a couple of swingers. He looks like a riverboat gambler played by Kevin Spacey, she is a good match for him. They spent a lot of time on the dance floor. And so on. I could talk about how the band sucked, again. But I’ll stop here.
Der Ball
Posted in Metamorphosism
What you want is an anthropologist.
If they could’ve made the ball wait til March, I might have accomodated you. Well, if we can talk Pixar into sending us to CHI2004, you’ll have to find us some other participant observation opportunities.
It’s sad, but the word “anthropologist” did not come to me, neither at the ball when I was first remarking on that, nor during the writing of that post. So I substituted zoologist, because there is one here, Antal Festetics, who does really funny television programs where he does stuff like that, observes people at a ball or whatever. At least I think he does. At least he used to, I think. If I got his name right.
My experience has been that women **never** take it well when wine is spilled on them in public places. Perhaps Austrian women are different; however, my ex-wife was Austrian and Swiss in descent. Days, weeks, perhaps years from now you will be punished.
Or I could be wrong. Perhaps a sampling error.
Oooh, Swiss/Austrian. Sounds like a volatile mix. Maybe the neutrality cancels itself out or something. A friend in college, whose father was from Switzerland, said he married and American woman rather than a Swiss woman because of three words: “Bitch, bitch, bitch.” I’m not saying there is any truth to that. I’m just reporting what he said.
I don’t really have much intimate experience with Austrian women; but I think I was really, really fortunate to get the one I did.
[Hey, who changed the locks?]